Complexity is a silent killer of focus, clarity, and performance.

This statement is true for businesses, but even more so for your work and life. It's easy to let complexity and disorder slowly seep in—we tend to add, but rarely subtract.

Benjamin Franklin’s daily routine had a dedicated window to avoid it:

A tidy, simple environment unlocks the mind.

You don't have to be a Marie Kondo aficionado to understand the negative impact that complex, cluttered environments can have on your output.

I've been there, so I developed a simple exercise I go through whenever I start to feel overhwlemed by my environment:

The Simplicity Audit...

The Basics of a Simplicity Audit

The Simplicity Audit examines four key environments of your life:

1. Physical Environment
2. Digital Environment
3. Mental Environment
4. Social Environment

For each item in each environment, ask two questions:

1. Is this necessary?
2. Is this energy creating?

There are three potential outcomes from these questions:

• "No" to both: Remove the item immediately.
• "Yes" to both: Keep the item.
• "Yes" to one: Think about it more. This item is either necessary or creating energy in your life. How necessary is it? How much energy is it creating. Think on it to decide whether to remove or keep.

The logic behind the Simplicity Audit is simple: You are a product of your environment. An environment comprised of necessary energy creators will compound positively in your life. An environment cluttered with unnecessary energy drainers will compound negatively in your life.

The other benefit of conducting a Simplicity Audit is a newfound awareness of the creeping complexity in your life. If you do it quarterly or biannually, you’ll slowly build the muscle to recognize when complexity is entering your life where it shouldn’t be.

You can keep the full process in your "toolkit" but save the time in future by cutting off complexity before it builds.

Auditing Your Four Environments

Physical Environment

Your Physical Environment includes all of the physical items in your life:

• Clothes
• Material goods
• Miscellaneous "stuff"

Most people accumulate and never remove from this environment.

Consider each item using the two questions and force a reset.

Sahil Tip: On an ongoing basis, consider using the 1-In-1-Out Rule (to add one "thing", you have to remove one "thing") to stay in a healthy place in your Physical Environment.

Digital Environment

Your Digital Environment includes all of the digital items in your life:

• Technology
• Apps
• Notifications

My Digital Environment is the greatest source of stress and anxiety in my life. I know I'm not alone—it's easy to get overwhelmed by your Digital Environment in this era of constant connectedness.

Fight back—delete apps, turn off notifications, and batch process messages. Stress and focus will improve.

Sahil Tip: One simple rule that helped declutter my Digital Environment: The 1-Week Rule. I close all of my browser tabs every Sunday evening no matter what. Anything that was still there and untouched clearly wasn’t important to me, and it avoids the 500 tabs open that stresses me out on Monday morning.

Mental Environment

Your Mental Environment includes all of the items that are regularly on your mind:

• Work
• Finances
• Household
• Wellness

Every item in your Mental Environment requires energy to maintain.

Make a habit of regularly asking, how can I make this easier? Automate or delegate these items when possible to reclaim headspace.

Sahil Tip: Most of your monthly finances can be easily automated through the websites or apps of modern-day financial institutions. Set up auto-pay on all recurring bills, automate direct deposits into investment accounts, and automate monthly investments. This declutters your headspace and allows you to compound your investments without thinking about them. Make a note to check statements every few months to confirm accuracy.

Social Environment

Your Social Environment includes all of the people that are in your life:

• Partner
• Children
• Friends
• Coworkers
• Family

As a simple rule: If someone is creating energy, spend more time with them. If someone is draining energy, spend less time with them.

Sahil Tip: Cut ties quickly with toxic relationships that invite negativity into your life. If it's hard to remove them from your life, consider having a direct conversation with the person to address the issue (on a walk, which makes a tough conversation easier).

Find Beauty in Simplicity

To summarize the Simplicity Audit:

• Examine the four environments of your life.
• For each item in each environment, ask two questions: Is this necessary? Is this energy creating?
• If "No" to both, remove it! If "Yes" to both, keep it! If "Yes" to one, think on it.

I conducted my first Simplicity Audit in 2021 and it felt like a weight had lifted off of my life.

Running a full Simplicity Audit on all four environments can be intimidating, so just pick one environment and start there. You can even narrow it down further and pick a single sub-environment (desk, phone, computer, etc.).

Simplify just one and your life will improve—I guarantee it.

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